‘She never missed a chance to do something good’: Polish missionary is killed in Bolivia

A Polish lay missionary has died after an apparent robbery at a childcare centre in the city of Cochabamba in Bolivia.

Helena Kmieć, who had only arrived in the country two weeks earlier, was stabbed by intruders and later died of her injuries.

Police have detained several suspects, according to Poland’s ministry of foreign affairs.

Fr Adam Ziolkowski, director of the Salvator Missionary volunteering group for which she worked, told Vatican Radio that robbers broke into the centre late at night. They found Helena awake and “she tried to defend herself and she was stabbed repeatedly”.

“She was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said.

He added that she was planning to volunteer at the childcare centre, run by an order of Polish Sisters, for six months.

Fr Ziolkowski said she was a “kind person and very helpful; she never missed a chance to do something good for others. Everyone who knew her was happy to spend time with her,” he said. Everyone knew her and loved her – we miss her very much.”